Two campuses within the University of Wisconsin System announced Tuesday they are offering employees a voluntary retirement buyout with a one-time payout equal to 50% of an employee's annual base salary.

The buyouts at UW-Oshkosh and UW-Green Bay offer the same payout, but the eligibility requirements are different. At UW-Green Bay, the offer is being extended to all employees 55 and older who have at least five years of service. At UW-Oshkosh, employees must be at least 60 and have 25 years of service to the state to be eligible.

Tuesday's announcements bring to four the total number of campuses seeking to reduce their workforce through voluntary buyouts in the face of state budget cuts. UW-Eau Claire was the first campus to make the offer, followed last week by UW-Superior.(324)

Arredondo has been an associate chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She's also the interim dean of the School of Continuing Education, professor of educational psychology.

She is now chair of Milwaukee's Social Development Commission.

Nealon-Woods said: "She brings academic and entrepreneurial expertise, in addition to multilcultural acumen and social advocacy, that this leadership role demands as we move the institution and the field of psychology forward."

A licensed psychologist in English and Spanish, she formerly worked at Arizona State University. Her focus is on multicultural counseling competency models, immigrants and life changing processes, Latino issues in counseling, social justice advocacy and organizational diversity assessment.

Born in Lorain, Ohio, Arredondo said her father was a Mexican immigrant who worked in a steel mill. Her U.S.-born mother was a housewife. She's one of seven children, five of whom are college graduates. The other two graduated from high school.

She said she left Ohio in the 1970s for Boston. She has degrees from Boston University and Boston College in counseling and a degree in Spanish and journalism from Kent State University in Ohio.

She's taught at Boston University and the University of New Hampshire.

Her focus, she said, is women's programs and female leadership, particularly in the areas of science.

From 1985 to 2000 she was founder and president of Empowerment Workshops, Inc., a business management consulting company.

About Georgia Pabst

Georgia Pabst is a general assignment reporter whose areas of coverage include Milwaukee County government, the Latino community, non-profits and neighborhoods.